by S MacDonald
She had been told by a counsellor that her lack of self-esteem was rooted in a lack of parental understanding and having been the victim of bullying at school. She was, the counsellor had said, still allowing herself to be victimised and needed to take control of her own destiny through positive self-talk and overcoming her sensitivity to the opinions of others.
Jen had found this easier in theory than practice, which was why she was here, hoping that the rehab programme operated by the Fourth might lead her in tiny manageable steps to that ultimate goal of becoming a strong, confident woman.
Silvie picked up on the feelings that went with Jen’s thoughts and memories of all those humiliating moments from parents and school.
‘Tuh!’ she said, expressing her irritation with the imbecilities of human child-rearing. ‘Idiots!’ she observed, then in a tone of bewilderment, ‘Did no-one ever notice you’re an empath?’
Since she had never known or even suspected that herself, Jen’s reaction was one of blank bewilderment. I’m a what?
‘Empath!’ Silvie repeated, again responding to what Jen had said as if she’d felt it aloud. ‘Introvert type,’ she added, as if she expected Jen to understand that. Then, seeing that she didn’t, she explained, as carefully as if to a child. ‘You’re an empath, highly sensitive to the feelings of others. In some people that makes them very loud, extrovert types, life and soul of the party. In others it makes them introvert, easily dominated and overwhelmed. You’re one of the strongest human empaths I’ve met – most humans are more empathic than they give themselves credit for, but you’re way up the top of the scale. Did you never even realise that, yourself?’ She shook her head, almost as amazed as Jen. ‘How could you not know that?’
‘But…’ Jen said, and in the same moment, she did know it, and understood with a clarity which lit up so many little things throughout her life which she had never put together before. She could see her mother, telling her over and over again that she was over-sensitive, that she let things get to her, that she was too easily led, that she was shy. All the people throughout her life who had told her in so many different ways that she was too sensitive to the feelings and disapproval of others, along with so many memories of that cringing feeling when she felt herself disapproved of.
Highly sensitive, she thought, and knew that it was true. And with that knowledge came despair, because if that was the reason for her shyness there seemed no hope of ever doing anything about it.
‘I know how it is,’ said Silvie, unexpectedly sympathetic. ‘When I first came to human space I was overwhelmed by the feelings and expectations of everyone around me – they expected me to be so many different things, I kept trying out different identities to try to fit in, but it never worked. It took me a while, and the help of a good friend, for me to realise that I had my own identity and could be that all the time. Now I just let their expectations bounce off.’
Jen gave her a wistful look. If only I could do that.
‘Of course you can,’ Silvie said, again responding to the feeling without any need for Jen to put it into words. ‘All you have to do,’ she told her, ‘when other people’s feelings are getting at you, is think, ‘Right back at you!’ It helps at first to visualise holding up a mirror between you and them to reflect their feelings back, but after a while you find you do the bounce-back automatically.’
Jen had a sudden image of herself standing tall, clad in shining armour and bearing a glittering shield on one arm. With it, she knew, she could deflect any attack. It was like seeing herself as a superhero, and the absurdity of it made her giggle a bit. Silvie laughed too, but gave her an approving nod.
‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘That’s your strength. Hang on to that thought.’
She left Jen to think about that while she finished off her hairstyle, getting her to stand up before she unveiled the new look.
Jen stared at the holo-mirror, half awed and half panicky. Even without the hairstyle, she just looked so different. Her skin was clear, a warm honeyed olive. Her eyes were bright and seemed bigger somehow – opened wide, she realised, instead of being tense with anxiety. Most of all, though, it was the hair which had transformed her. Silvie had given her extensions, creating just the kind of glorious mane Jen had always dreamed of. It was cut just short enough to comply with Fleet regs, a cloud of fiery reds with burnished bronze glints.
Jen had dreamed of looking like this, of standing so tall, with just that radiant look at me style. Silvie had found her inner self, her true personality, and put it out there on brazen display.
Fear was rising, and rapidly overtaking wonder. Even at the thought of letting people see her like this, Jen’s knees felt weak and her stomach turned over. They’d laugh, she just knew it, they’d laugh uproariously at the sight of her and she would never, ever, live it down or forget the awful shame.
Without realising, she began to hunch her shoulders and drop her chin into her habitual attitude of trying to become as small and inconspicuous as possible. At that, Silvie put one perfectly positioned finger between her shoulder blades, pushed hard, and kept on pushing. To her own surprise Jen felt her shoulder blades go back and her posture straighten. Oh.
‘Better.’ Silvie kept her finger on Jen’s back but took the pressure off so it was steadying now rather than forceful. ‘Three things,’ she told her briskly. ‘One, be yourself – your true self, for my sake if not for your own. I know humans often do have that painful dissonance between inner and outer selves and I can put up with it socially but I don’t want to have to endure that kind of horrible noise from a shipmate, okay? In a mature species, of course, it wouldn’t matter a damn what you look like, but humans do judge by appearances so it’s important that you express who you are in the way that you look as well as how you are with other people.’ She gave her a moment to take that in, and seeing understanding, continued.
‘Second, find your wings. You’re a talented empath and that should be something you embrace and fly with – make it work not only for yourself but as a skill you can bring to the team. And third, recognise that you have an ideal opportunity right now. Nobody here knows you. They’ll accept you anyway; they’re very accepting, welcoming people here, more so than any other group of people I’ve encountered. But they are human so they’ll accept the self you show them, and as is habitual with the species, a big chunk of that will be formed in first encounters. It takes a lot of effort to change the view that humans have of you from their first impressions. So get that right, okay? Go out there and shine. Be…’ she paused for a moment and looked a little surprised herself as she realised she didn’t actually know, ‘What is your name?’
Jen felt a twinge of dismay. Somehow, she knew, ‘Able Star Jennet’ or even ‘Jen’ was not going to cut it with Silvie. She wanted the truth.
‘Prudenta,’ she admitted, with the sigh that admitting to her name always generated. ‘My mother’s a historian,’ she added, in the automatic explanation. ‘It’s the name of a queen from ancient times. And yes, I know, it sounds like an oral hygiene product and it’s okay to laugh, I don’t mind.’
‘Yes you do,’ Silvie looked a little indignant, giving another irritated little tuh. ‘The things humans do to their kids,’ she said, and as Jen looked uncertain, ‘Quarians don’t give our kids names, they choose their own names and change them a lot as they grow up, then settle into one as adults. I had to find a name for my new life amongst humans, too, when I came here. So, what would you like to be called?’
Jen considered that, looking at herself in the mirror. It would have, she realised, to be a name she could live with, comfortable and unselfconscious. And it would not, while she had breath in her body, be any variation of ‘Prudenta’. Well-meaning people had tried to call her ‘Pru’ in the past, but it carried too many associations with all the years of being called ‘Prude’ or ‘Dentastick’ at school.
‘Jen,’ she said, and knew it was the right decision. ‘I’m happy being Jen.’
&nb
sp; Silvie nodded agreement. ‘Well then,’ she said. ‘Go out there and be Jen, show them who you really are.’
Jen thought about this for a moment, then came to a sudden, appalling realisation.
‘Oh my…’ she broke off and gave Silvie a horrified look. ‘I’m supposed to be signing aboard! I just walked off from the airlock without a word and left my kitbag there and everything! Oh!’ She put her hands to her face, as a fierce blush rose to her cheeks. I’m going to die of embarrassment.
Silvie laughed. ‘Buzz won’t mind,’ she promised.
She was right, he didn’t. Buzz was as curious as everyone else – Silvie had her eccentricities but this was the first time she had abducted a member of the crew. Word had flashed around the ship that the quarian had walked off with a new arrival from the airlock, apparently in a state of hypnosis. Everyone was talking about it, wondering what was going on and watching for when they came out of the salon. Which was why, when they emerged, there were gasps and exclamations all over the ship. Everyone had, by then, seen the footage of Jen Jennet coming aboard, a scrawny, timid little mouse with bad skin and worse hair. Now a fiery princess stepped out of the salon, rather self-conscious but standing straight and with her head held high. Silvie was propelling her with one finger on her back, steering her towards the nearest ladderway and assuring her that nobody was going to be cross.
Nobody was. Buzz beamed at her when Silvie took her onto the command deck, his manner so pleased and approving that Jen found herself relaxing. Even the skipper looked frankly amused, giving her a quick, appraising look and friendly grin.
‘I do apologise, sir,’ Jen said rapidly, as she approached the datatable. ‘I’m very sorry, I shouldn’t have…’
‘Never mind.’ Buzz waved her apologies away with a chuckle. ‘Let’s just call it,’ he glanced at Silvie, ‘circumstances beyond your control.’
Jen giggled. She could sense nothing but amusement and approval from everyone around her, which was heartening in itself, and she was well aware of Silvie’s reaction to that tease, too. Silvie was, indeed, the definition of ‘circumstances beyond control’ and had been so defined in a great many reports on diplomatic incidents.
‘I was,’ Silvie observed, with considerable dignity, ‘helping.’ She moved over to the table as she spoke and sat down, asking the Exec, ‘Do you have my cookie?’
‘Sorry,’ said Buzz, amidst the merriment that caused – his expression when he’d found himself left at the airlock with a kitbag and half a cookie had been hilarious in itself. ‘You can have another one.’ He looked over at the duty rigger, who grinned and went to fetch the cookie tin, and that matter having been resolved, looked back at the giggling recruit. ‘So, let’s pick up where we were, okay?’ He got up, holding out his hand to her. ‘Welcome aboard, Ms Jennet.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ she responded, every bit as mock-solemn, and looking back at him with twinkling eyes.
Buzz grinned. One of the early steps in the very carefully worked out rehab programme for Jen had been to work towards her being able to make eye contact with senior officers. Considerably further on from that was a goal of engaging in informal conversation, perhaps ultimately even sharing a joke. The timescale for that had been provisionally estimated at between four and eight months.
‘Well,’ Buzz said. ‘I know we have high expectations of our rehab programme, but really?’ He looked ostentatiously at his wristcom. ‘Forty seven minutes,’ he observed. ‘That’s going some, even for us.’
To her delight, Jen saw that he meant it, that even just looking at her, shaking her hand, having a laugh with her, Mr Burroughs knew she was fine. And with that, she knew it too.
‘Yes sir!’ she acknowledged, with a rush of delight. ‘Silvie says I’m an empath,’ she told him, and saw understanding on both his face and the skipper’s.
‘Excellent,’ said Alex, and she could see he meant that too, that he was both interested and pleased at having a member of his team with unusual abilities. ‘I’m afraid we don’t have any training on the books that would help you develop that,’ he said, with an eye, as always, to maximising the skills of every member of his crew. ‘But perhaps…’ he looked significantly at Silvie and she held up a hand in a casual gesture, as if volunteering, while the other hand was choosing a cookie. ‘Thank you,’ the skipper grinned at her, then told Jen, ‘We’ll schedule you time with Silvie as part of your training programme.’
Just like that, Jen thought. Just like that, her life was transformed. Half an hour ago she’d been a desperately shy geek with the self-esteem of an earwig. And now she was having a laugh with the captain and being promised specialist training from the quarian ambassador. It was beyond unreal, but it was real. And she could feel, too, the warmth from those around her, not just the officers but everyone on the command deck. They weren’t looking at her as if she was weird – there was curiosity, sure, and amusement, but it was overwhelmingly friendly and supportive.
‘Thank you, sir,’ she said, and looked at Silvie, filling up with everything she felt and wanted to say. Thank you.
Silvie saluted her with her cookie and bit into it contentedly, which for some reason made everyone laugh again. It was almost an anti-climax after that to have to do the signing aboard ritual, with another burst of amusement as Jen was reunited with her kitbag. As she was led away to start her new life as a member of the Fourth, it was clear that she really was going to be a very welcome addition to the crew. And seeing how much interest and amusement her arrival had already caused, Alex privately conceded that Simon was quite right; crew rotations and fresh faces would be invaluable for keeping up morale in the months to come.
Not all arrivals were so positive, however. Amongst the least welcome was the representative of the Second Irregulars who came out to, as he said, resolve the issue of Professor Parrot and his team.
As far as Alex was concerned, there was no issue. Admittedly, the Second had been quite keen to relocate the professor and his research team to the new facilities at Oreol. They had other teams standing by to make use of the facilities aboard the Heron, with an exodiplomacy research team pushed right to the top of the waiting list.
Professor Parrot, however, had refused to go. There was no argument about it, he wouldn’t engage in debate of any kind, still less attempt to justify himself. He just said no, and went on saying no. Alex had been asked to persuade him to vacate the lab and had himself said no, albeit politely, explaining that this was a matter for the Second to agree with the professor directly.
Hence, therefore, the arrival of Commander Mikthorn. Commander Mikthorn had a sense of self-importance wholly unjustified either by his previous career or his current position. The Fleet had all manner of administrative roles into which they eased higher ranking officers in the year or two before their retirement. In Commander Mikthorn’s case that had been to give him to the Second as an administrative officer. The Second had found him efficient in that role and had sent him to Telathor to run their office there. Alex had met him a couple of times during the Fourth’s visit to Telathor and had formed no great opinion of him. He’d had further dealings with him since, by correspondence, but that too had made very little impact amongst all the far more important things he had to think about.
Commander Mikthorn’s arrival, therefore, was a surprise in many ways. For one thing, the gatekeepers at Oreol were adamant about not allowing anyone aboard either the Fourth’s ships or the couriers unless they had permission from Alex to go out to the Heron. They themselves had final say on which of the many applicants would have the four Civilian Observer places available each fortnight. Nobody else had got past them, no matter how official, how important, or how determined, so the fact that Commander Mikthorn had got past them and obtained a place aboard a courier was astonishing in itself. And more astonishing still to Alex, who hadn’t thought he had sufficient initiative and drive even to make the journey out to Oreol, still less get through that duralloy security.
‘Commander Mikthorn?’ he queried, expressing this incredulity when he was told that the commander had arrived on that day’s courier.
‘Skipper,’ Very Vergan confirmed, with some amazement still on his own face. He’d had a lot more contact with the commander while they’d been at Telathor and could hardly believe that the administrative officer had made it all the way out here by himself. And by courier, too, which was beyond doubt the most uncomfortable and unnerving method of transport in space, if not in the whole of human experience. Even in clear space, the tiny high speed couriers vibrated, juddered, squeaked and creaked with a clamour that made even spacers feel nervous. The run through the dirty space between Oreol and Border Station, even along the autopilot route laid down by the Fourth, was a nightmare of jolts, alarms and technical failures. It had already been agreed that they would not carry passengers on this route, as the three-person crew already had more than enough to do just getting themselves and their ship through the route safely. ‘On,’ Very said, stressing the point, ‘the courier.’ He let that hang in the air for a moment for the skipper to consider the hell that the commander had put himself through in order to get out to them. ‘He’s asking for permission to come aboard,’ he indicated the request on the comms board and looked enquiring. ‘So…’ his hand hovered over the controls, waiting for the skipper’s yay or nay.
Alex hesitated for a moment. His first impulse was to say no, both because the man had no authorisation from him to be here and because some instinct told him that this was going to be a nuisance. On second thoughts, though, he recognised that the commander could not have got aboard the courier unless he’d convinced the authorities at Oreol that he had the right and need to do so. It seemed ungracious, too, after the pummelling the other officer would have had during the last few days, not to allow him aboard at least for the courtesy of a decent shower and a cup of tea.
‘All right,’ he said.